Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 102-acre historic cemetery holding Sam Houston and nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers — and a darkened bronze Thorvaldsen sculpture whose hands locals claim move at night.
Martin Luther King Drive, Huntsville, TX 77340
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public cemetery maintained by the City of Huntsville
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved cemetery roads through 102 acres; some older sections have uneven ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1847 · Sam Houston Burial Site · Joshua Houston — Formerly Enslaved Texas Politician · Approximately 1,500 Confederate Soldiers · Enslaved Persons Burial Section (Discovered 2004) · 1867 Yellow Fever Victims
Oakwood Cemetery dates to 1847, when Pleasant Gray deeded a parcel of land that became Huntsville's primary burial ground. Over the following decades it absorbed the full spectrum of Walker County society: Sam Houston, who had served as governor of both Tennessee and Texas and as the republic's president, was buried here in 1863. His associate Joshua Houston — born enslaved, later a businessman and Walker County politician — is also interred at Oakwood.
The Civil War left a heavy imprint: nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers are buried in the cemetery, making it one of the larger Confederate burial sites in East Texas. An 1867 Yellow Fever epidemic claimed a number of lives in the county, including Union soldiers, and those graves are also here.
In 2004, archaeologists and cemetery staff identified approximately 150 unmarked, sunken graves in the older section — depressions in the ground where wooden grave markers had long since decayed. Unlettered white concrete crosses were placed to mark their locations; this section, historically referred to as the "Negro Cemetery" in older records, is believed to contain the remains of enslaved people and their descendants from the antebellum period.
The First Christian Church held the property from 1963 until 2003, when the City of Huntsville assumed ownership and ongoing maintenance of all 102 acres.
Sources
The focal point of Oakwood Cemetery's haunted reputation is a bronze sculpture formally called 'The Comforting Christ' — a cast of a Bertel Thorvaldsen design — erected in the 1920s by the Powell family to mark the grave of Rawley Rather Powell. The bronze has darkened significantly from environmental exposure and is locally known as 'Black Jesus.'
Accounts documented by KHOU and local paranormal researchers describe two primary claims: that the statue's eyes appear to follow visitors as they move around it, and that the hands seem to shift position when viewed at night. An additional detail noted by local observers is that the Powell family graves face west while virtually all other burials in the cemetery face east — an inversion of the standard Christian burial orientation that has contributed to the site's reputation.
The statue sits in a secluded clearing within the cemetery grounds, surrounded by benches, mature trees, and dense forest that creates a markedly different atmosphere from the open sections of the cemetery. No organized paranormal investigations are currently advertised at the site.
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Explore 102 acres of documented Texas history, including Sam Houston's grave, the unmarked burial section for approximately 150 enslaved persons discovered in 2004, nearly 1,500 Confederate soldier graves, and the Comforting Christ sculpture — a darkened bronze Thorvaldsen figure locally known as 'Black Jesus' that is the focal point of the cemetery's paranormal reputation.
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